Description: Second article in a series on how to use predictive analytics to improve the development of long-term care projection assumptions.

Description: The paper o ers a simple framework for ranking the common reinsurance struc- tures in practice with the theory of stochastic orders. The basic idea is to slice the space of reinsurance structures into groups by expected loss cost to facilitate the comparisons within the group and between groups. Given the standard risk aversion assumption in economics, a spectrum of reinsurance structures with the same expected loss cost can be compared analytically with one another and sequenced based on their risk coverages under the convex order. The paper then expands the dimension of the comparison to groups of reinsurance structures with di erent expected loss costs, which can be ranked under the increasing convex order and the usual stochastic order. As such, the paper maps out the ordering for the entire space of reinsurance structures and presents it in a ma- trix format for quick reference. The implication of this stochastic ordering to reinsurance pricing is also investigated.

Description: This article discussed the NEAT family of neural network algorithms. NEAT automatically determines the number of hidden neurons, as well as their structure. Additionally HyperNEAT can scale to very large problem domains.

Description: Review of a research project, co-sponsored by the SOA, which examined 83 organizations and over 150 programs that measure the quality and efficiency of hospitals and physicians.

Description: The article described recent major advances in measurement of health programs and providers in the public and private sector.

Description: The P versus NP millennium problem considers a grouping of programs based on a formula for how long at most it takes to process an input string of length n. This article discusses building computer models to solve such problems and generalizes this to business applications.

Description: U.K. life insurers writing participating business have, since the end of 2004, been required by their regulator, the Financial Services Authority FSA, to value their assets and liabilities on a market-consistent basis. The purpose of this paper is to explain the new valuation approach based on market-consistent values and its rationale set out the issues faced by life insurers in implementing the new regime and explain how these issues have been addressed by insurers.

Description: This article delves into a new line of statistical thinking of the author, that may be useful for product development actuaries. The key concept is how product design can produce products that diversify quickly, meaning that the company can be confident of a profitable product line, based on fewer sales than might be true for other designs.

Description: This article explores the unique economic and behavioral considerations and challenges in reaching the millennial generation to help them address their life insurance protection needs.

Description: This is an in-depth look at the root causes of the subprime mortgage crisis and ways actuaries can eliminate the problems. From the Actuary Magazine, April/May 2010 – Volume 7 Issue 2.